


And together we might just change the world

by heliza24



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: But also labor reform, Diana and Anne are in their last years of Queens, F/M, Fluff, Gen, If your first date doesn't involve activism, Jerry and Diana are grown up now, Minor Character Death, Parent Death, Post-Season/Series 03, falling in love over a project, was it really a first date at all?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26309887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliza24/pseuds/heliza24
Summary: It's three years after the end of season 3, and Anne and Diana are in their final year at Queens. Jerry has made his way to Charlottetown, working at a factory and taking night classes. When Jerry joins a union and Anne and Diana unwittingly join in with the strike efforts, their paths collide once again.  Jerry knows he shouldn't fall in love with Diana again after she rejected him in Avonlea, but he's not sure that he can help it...
Relationships: Diana Barry/Jerry Baynard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	1. Don't be afraid to speak up when something is wrong

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for Erika, who is an incredible friend and who has given me so much as an author. I am sorry this fic was approximately a billion years late. I hope it makes you smile.

Jerry tapped his foot nervously. He wasn’t used to sitting still for so long. And despite the fact that he had never been to a formally organized meeting before, he had a suspicion that this one was beginning to go off the rails. A thin wiry man had taken the stage of the small meeting hall. Jerry didn’t know him, and his fingers were unstained, which meant he must work farther down the assembly line, once the blueberries and other fruits were already canned. Jerry’s fingers were constantly stained blue, no matter how careful he was and no matter how many times he washed his hands.

“The solution,” proclaimed the wiry man, whose name was Arnould, “is actually simple. Send the women back to the home where they belong. Then there will be enough money to keep the men’s wages high.”

Jerry heard the group of female workers sitting behind him bristle. He was irritated too. It didn’t make any sense. Women at the factory were already paid less than the men, $6 per week to the men’s $8. Eliminating the female workforce would just leave the assembly line understaffed, which would force the factory owners to hire more men to replace them. That would ultimately cost more and require them to cut wages regardless. That was the kind of idea that Matthew would have laughed if it had been suggested by someone in Avonlea. “Makes as much sense as a horse riding a chicken,” he would say, or something else equally ridiculous. When Jerry first met Matthew Jerry’s English was still a little rough and he often thought that he must be misinterpreting the old man’s words. But as Jerry’s fluency improved, he realized that Matthew was just creative with his use of English. Sometimes he tried to translate his expressions into French to amuse his classmates at school. It made him miss the Cuthberts a little less.

Anne, of course, would have been totally incensed at Arnould’s sexism. She would have stormed off in a huff, and somehow roped Ms. Stacey and the rest of her school friends in to some kind of dramatic action to protest the injustice of the mere suggestion of a male-only work force. When Anne had initially left for Queens, Jerry was secretly a little bit relieved. Her personality was so big it was sometimes hard to get a word in edgewise, and Jerry was never sure where he stood in relation to her and her friends. Especially Diana. He liked having Matthew’s quiet counsel and the farm to himself. But then after only a few weeks, boredom set in. There was no one to tease, or to conspire against Marilla with. The farm was very, very quiet without Anne.

That was when Ms. Stacey had stopped by the farm. The school printing press was broken, and she had come to fetch Matthew to help her fix it so that it would be ready for next year’s class. Jerry was hidden behind the chicken coup, his nose buried in Pride and Prejudice when Ms. Stacey introduced herself. After she asked after Anne, she asked him how he was finding Pemberley.

“Oh, you mean the book!” Jerry exclaimed. “I love it. It is very… how do you say it… witty?”

She asked him what he thought of Darcy (Jerry thought he was a very interesting character, but not someone he would necessarily like to have lunch with) and Elizabeth (Jerry would very much like to have lunch with her, as he thought he might have a bit of a crush on her) and if he had plans for the future that would take him beyond the farm.

“You’re too bright to be a farmer forever,” she said. In the end Jerry went to work on the printing press instead of Matthew. He left the schoolhouse balancing a precarious pile of new books that Ms. Stacey had lent him: Jane Eyre, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Little Women. When he had a few hours free from farm chores he went to talk to her, either at the schoolhouse or at her house, about books. Jerry wasn’t used to having intellectual conversations about literature. His parents were illiterate and he was the only one of his six siblings that spoke fluent English. Even the educated Diana hadn’t understood his passion for Frankenstein’s monster, and the sting of her rejection encouraged him to keep his thoughts about books to himself until Ms. Stacey started asking him questions. He loved it. He liked working on the farm, of course. It kept his family fed and he loved Matthew like a grandfather. But there was something inside him that always felt restless, some piece of his brain that could never focus on hay or plows or feed. But talking to Ms. Stacey, who took his thoughts very seriously, was a bit like being lit up by the electric lights in the Avonlea town hall. It was a new, thrilling feeling.

He didn’t tell anyone, not even Matthew and Marilla. Diana’s words when she told him he wasn’t good enough for her family still bounced around in his head, even though it had been a year since she he had last seen her. Besides, what could come of it? He had to keep working. That was until Ms. Stacey arrived with a flyer. A new Acadian school was opening up in Charlottetown, with classes in both Quebecois and English. They had night classes, and Ms. Stacey volunteered to help pay his tuition. His cousin got him a job in McGuirk’s Canning Plant on the outskirts of town, and soon he found himself in Charlottetown.

He barely spent any time in his shabby little boardinghouse room. He was on the assembly line 10 hours a day, six days a week. It made him miss the wide open spaces of the farm more than he thought possible. His hands ached and he sent every spare cent he had back to his family. But for two hours every night he got to read, not just novels, but philosophy, law, and history, and talk about those things with a whole classroom of people who took him seriously. In French. It made the dull, repetitive factory work almost worth it. He felt like he was constantly racing to keep up with the swirl of new ideas that permeated the classroom, and sometimes he was sure that his head would burst if he kept taking in new ideas. What ended up actually happening was that he somehow found himself in the middle of planning a strike.

Jerry made friends with Francis, who also worked at McGurik’s and sat next to him in class, who introduced him to Sebastien, who introduced him to Olivier, who spent most of his time talking about the injustice of the Acadian deportations and their lasting systemic effects on the Maritime provinces. Jerry liked Olivier, who was maybe 25 and very persuasive. And the things he said made so much about the world make sense for the first time: why the Cuthbert’s land was always more fertile than his family’s, why he couldn’t go to school with the rest of the Avonlea children, why Diana’s mother had yelled at her when she found her in the Baynards’ house.

So when the very Anglo Mr. McGurik lowered everyone’s wages by $2 to try to compete with a new, mainland factory, Jerry found himself handing out flyers for Le Syndicat, Prince Edward Island’s very first factory union. He was excited for the first meeting in the little Acadian town hall but had no idea how things were supposed to go. He was glad Olivier was there to lead, handing out little Acadian flags and beaming with confidence. But not everyone trusted Olivier like Jerry did. A group of older workers started raising objections, one by one.

“Do not protest against the McGuriks before getting your own house in order!” Arnould shouted.

Jerry hesitated for just a minute. He did not feel ready to speak in front of a crowd. He was not a leader, not really, and he knew he didn’t know enough about unions or economics to effectively counter Arnould’s point. But something Ms. Stacey told him after he was accepted in to school kept bouncing around his head.

“I’m so proud of you. I think you could really change the world if you wanted to.”

“Oh no,” Jerry countered. “You think far too highly of me.” A few days before he left for Charlottetown she gave him a notebook. On the first page, she had written a note:

“To Jerry— remember, don’t be afraid to speak up if you see something is wrong. Don’t be afraid to apologize if you do something wrong. Actions speak louder than words. Always look for hope on the darkest of days. You may just change the world.”

Before he knew it he was standing up and addressing the crowd. He tripped over his words a little, but he knew he needed to speak, because this was wrong. He explained it how Matthew would have; it just didn’t make sense.

“And,” he added “we cannot be hypocrites, demanding rights for our labor and denying women theirs.” The women in the hall cheered and a vaguely familiar voice shouted “Here, here!” from the back of the hall. His point made, Jerry breathed a sigh of relief. Jerry’s interjection had given Olivier the opening he needed to regain control of the meeting, and everything was back on track.

Then Jerry glanced towards the back of the hall as he sat down. Jerry’s had three distinct thoughts in the same instant. One: Though they were far more grown up than he remembered them, the two women standing near the back of the hall were none other than Anne Shirley Cuthbert and Diana Barry. Two: They were clapping for him. And three: It was truly unfair that after several years and a broken heart, Jerry still found Diana heart-stoppingly beautiful.


	2. Don't be afraid to apologize

Diana trailed behind Anne and Jerry, who were talking a million miles a minute.It was just as well that Anne felt the need to catch Jerry up on the last three years of her life on the short walk home back to their boardinghouse, since Diana had been so surprised to see Jerry again she seemed to have forgotten how to speak.

Anne, of course, had been the one to get wind of the general meeting and the strike. She had set up a collection amongst the girls at Queens and insisted that they bring the small pile of pennies to the union meeting, despite it being in a part of town forbidden by Mrs. Johnson, their boardinghouse mother.Sometimes when she was around girls from Queens, Diana pretended to disapprove of Anne’s schemes and adventures, but secretly she still loved being dragged along.

It had never occurred to her that Jerry might be at the meeting. For a moment she had doubted that it was him, this charismatic young man with his shirt sleeves rolled up, speaking confidentially in front of the crowd.But then he tripped over his words, ducked his head and blushed, and Diana recognized the shy farmhand he used to be. His eyes were the same glittery brown.A wave of feelings hit her: equal parts old crush, new attraction, and nostalgia. So when Anne ran up to Jerry after the meeting and he offered to walk them home in the April dusk, she was happy to to let Anne do the talking and hang back.

Diana tried to analyze the source of the guilt as they walked, mainly so that she wouldn’t have to interrogate the way being close to Jerry was making her heart pound.She had been so young when she kissed him behind the fair tents in Avonlea. She knew she had hurt himwhen she told him that he wasn’t good enough for her in her family’s eyes.She knew she disagreed with her father’s judgement even as the words came out of her mouth, but she hadn’t yet known how to articulate her own independent thoughts at that point.Maybe she still didn’t.Hadn’t she gone with Anne to this meeting without telling Charles? He would have sat in the lobby of the boardinghouse for hours, waiting for her to come back for their planned date until Mrs. Johnson kicked him out.Sometimes it was just easier to let Anne sweep her up on one of her grand adventures without explaining her plans. It might mean a fight with Charles later, but at least it saved Diana from hearing about how foolhardy he thought Anne was.

Charles was her beau and probably her soon-to-be fiancé, if she didn’t keep leaving him waiting when they were supposed to go out.They met when Minnie May, who was visiting Diana in Charlottetown at the time, knocked over a large display of hats in Charles’s father’s department store in her enthusiastic desire to try the biggest one on. Charles was working the floor (to help him learn the business before he took it over, he later explained), and helped clean up Minnie May’s mess. He slipped a ribbon off of one of the hats and gave it to her when the other clerks weren’t looking, and Minnie May had loved him ever since.He was from a respectable and successful family, so her parents loved him too. The only person who didn’t particularly love him was Anne. 

“He’s too serious,” she proclaimed, very seriously.

Diana was pretty sure it was actually a simple case of jealousy, because dates with Charles took up time that would have previously been devoted to best bosom friend matters, so Diana just reminded Anne of how often she listened to her moon about Gilbert’s letters and tried to evenly divide her time between them.

“Thank you for the donation.”Diana was startled out of her reverie by Jerry, who had walked back over to her.Anne had gone into the boardinghouse, and it was just the two of them standing outside in the last of the golden hour now.

“Oh, it was Anne’s idea,” Diana said.She should have followed Anne inside quickly when she had a chance.She didn’t know what to do now that they were alone.

“She said that you collected more than her. Because the other girls look up to you, so they donate when you ask.”

“That’s just Anne saying nice things I probably don’t deserve.”

“You deserve nice things, Diana.”

He said it so quickly, without thinking. His sincerity took her aback, and she was silent for a moment, wondering how he could say that when she had said basically the opposite to him the last time they had spoken.

“I was surprised to see you again. Especially on the Acadian side of town,” Jerry said after a pause.

“I was surprised to see you too.” Diana took a breath and decided the only way to banish the guilt hanging between them was to address it head on. “I’m sorry Jerry. For what I said last time I saw you. My family is wrong about a lot of things. And I’m often not much better.”

Jerry looked at the ground and toed a pebble. Diana could almost see him thinking. “You should come again. To the meetings. They’re every Thursday at 7 from now on,” he said.

“Does that mean you accept my apology?”

“Peut être. Bring Anne. Don’t be late. Olivier hates when people are late.” And before Diana had the chance to ask him who Olivier was, he turned and sprinted back down the street.


	3. Actions speak louder than words

In retrospect, Jerry didn’t remember much from the two months of the strike. How he occupied his time when he wasn’t working, what he was studying in school during those months, all the food he wasn’t eating bought with money he wasn’t earning— it was all a blur. What he did remember was Diana. The moments she appeared in his life were like little pearls of memory, even after the concussion. After it was all over he was able to put the last two months together mainly from his memories of her, like stringing beads back on to a broken necklace.

\---

His first memory was of the first meeting after the strike was declared.He could not think back to their conversation outside the boarding house without turning pink— he had literally run away rather than have a complicated conversation after she had apologized— but she and Anne still turned up, with Cole in tow. And they weren’t late.

That first day they were organizing the picket line and painting signs.Cole’s of course, were beautiful, with careful lettering and perfectly drawn illustrations.Diana had to discourage Anne from writing a whole novel on hers. And Jerry had to tell Diana that the star went on the blue, not the red stripe of the Acadian flag.

“Now who’s Miss Highest Grade in Queens in geography?” Anne teased.

“We will have to take away her diploma,” Jerry agreed with mock seriousness.

Diana swiped at Anne with her paint brush, Jerry parried on her behalf, and pretty soon they were having a paint fight and laughing. When Jerry leaned over and painted a yellow star on Diana’s cheek she stopped squirming and watched him quietly.Jerry was suddenly painfully aware of how close his hand was to her face.

“There,” he said quickly, dropping the paint brush. “Now you will never forget where it goes.”

\---

The second day that Jerry remembered was a few weeks into the strike. The women had organized shifts and were using the small kitchen at the back of the meeting hall to prepare meals for the more disadvantaged families of striking workers.Jerry had left some of his school books behind at the last meeting, so he stopped by to pick them up and discovered that Anne and Diana had been left alone in the kitchen.They were covered in flour and were staring down what was supposed to be a large quantity of meat pies.

“Are you all right?” Jerry asked.

“We are splendid!” Anne called. “We are making pies fit for a king.”

“We are absolutely not,” Diana countered. “I cannot get the oven to light, and we are mainly making a very large mess.”

Jerry stepped in to help and got the rickety old oven firing.Anne martialled her forces and got them set up in an assembly line, and pretty soon the pies started to come together.She also tried to organize them into a chorus to sing frere jacques in a round as they worked, which was less successful. They fell into companionable silence for a while.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class now? It’s the middle of a Thursday,” Jerry asked.

“It was just comportment and home economics today, which are not worth the walk to campus. Besides, we’re doing more cooking here than we ever do in class. We should practically be getting extra credit” Diana answered.

“But Diana, how are you ever to become a _wife_ if you don’t learn how to properly conduct yourself at the most boring of dinner parties?” Anne teased.

This was clearly a well worn conversation between the two of them, and Jerry felt like he was missing some key piece of information that would let him fully understand it.

“Diana has a boyfriend,” Anne said, responding to the confusion on his face with an eye roll.

Jerry felt understanding spark even as his heart sank. Damn. He couldn’t go falling in love with Diana all over again. She had rejected him once, and clearly now she was spoken for. No matter how kind she was being to him.

“He is the _worst,_ ” Anne moaned.

“Anne! Stop it!” Diana threw an extra piece of pie dough at her.

“He’s so boring and he never does anything remotely romantical enough to deserve the affections of my beloved Lady Diana.”

Jerry expected Diana to argue with that and tell Anne all the marvelous things about her beau (in Jerry’s head he was incredibly handsome, with the kind of mustache Jerry always admired but was unable to grow), but Diana was just quiet. Jerry wondered if this was an opportunity.

“Oh? And what do you think a man should do for someone he likes? That would be… romantical enough?”

Anne’s face lit up. This was her favorite topic to pontificate on.

“Well. First he should profess his undying love to her. Then he should vanquish all of her enemies, and duel anyone that would besmirch her honor.”

“Anne. It’s 1901. Not 1401,” Diana said.

“Oh fine,” she relented. “But he should at least speak to her with genuine interest. Make her laugh. Write her letters when he is away. And not expect her to sit through endless teas with his stuffy family. Am I wrong, Diana?”

At that moment a small plume of black smoke escaped out of the oven, and all thoughts of romance were driven out by their effort to save their pies.

\---

Another scrap of memory: Diana running out the backdoor of the boardinghouse towards him and grabbing his hand.

Jerry had managed to pick up some piece meal work as a laborer, but with the strike on and his exams for the year finished, his days were much emptier and lonelier than they had once been. So he had taken to walking to pick the girls up before meetings, and walking them back to the boardinghouse after, even though he knew they were capable of taking themselves. He looked forward to it every week. As much as he loved Anne, he knew it was because of Diana. Despite his best efforts, he had fallen for her again.He loved making her laugh, watching her seriousness melt into a smile.She wore some kind of perfume that smelled like flowers, and when things began to bloom that spring he couldn’t concentrate because every breeze smelled like her. Concentrating enough to study for exams had been impossible when he knew he would see her again in three, in two, in one day’s time.Sometimes when she was talking to him he caught himself wondering what it would be like to kiss her again, but an actual adult kiss this time, not just a peck on the lips. Then he would realize that he hadn’t heard anything she had actually said, and he would have to smile and nod until the conversation moved on from him.

So the Thursday walk from the boardinghouse to the meetinghouse was his most cherished time of the week.Normally Anne and Diana were waiting for him in the front parlor or on the porch, and came out right away.On this May evening, however, Jerry was left waiting for ten, then fifteen minutes. He circled around the building until he found the second story window that he thought was Anne and Diana’s room, and chucked a small pebble up against the glass.Sure enough, the window opened and Anne stuck her head out.She made an exaggerated “Shhh!” motion, pressing her finger to her lips, and then closed the glass.“What is she doing?” Jerry wondered.

Before he had a chance to figure it out, Diana was sprinting towards him. And then she had taken his hand and was pulling him down the street.

“What is happening?” Jerry asked, as he began jogging to keep up.

“We have to go quick! Charles wanted me to go eat dinner with his grandma, but I just couldn’t deal with her horrible rants about young people these days one more time, so Anne said I was ill, and then I snuck out, and she’s distracting Charles and his grandmother, but we have to go before they see us.”

“Diana.” Jerry pulled her to a stop. “You cannot just run away from him.”

“I’d rather be at the meeting. With you.”

Jerry didn’t know what to say to that, but just then Anne appeared and crashed into Diana.

“Charles went home,” she said. “I told you, my acting is second to none.”

“Good,” Diana said, and then she gave Jerry a perfect smile.

\---

Next, a beautiful day in the first week of June.Like most good schemes, it was Anne who came up with it. One day when they were all on the picket line, Anne proclaimed. “I’m hot. It’s finally summer and we should go to the beach.”

They couldn’t go to the beach that day, because there was more chanting in front of the factory to do, and then it was late and Diana and Anne had to go home.But the next Saturday, Anne, Diana, Jerry, and Cole were all at the beach, sitting on a picnic blanket.Cole was drawing and Anne was talking his ear off.Diana was reading and eating strawberries. Jerry was stretched out across the blanket next to Diana, eyes closed against the sun. When he looked up she took up his whole field of vision. 

They had lapsed into comfortable silence when Cole said, “Anne, I need some seashells for my next sculpture. You’re the best at finding them. Come search with me.”

Anne got up immediately without asking Diana to come with her, which felt suspicious to Jerry. He wondered if they were conspiring to leave him and Diana alone.On the off hand chance that they were, he thanked them silently.

Jerry sat up and snuck a strawberry from the bowel on Diana’s lap. She passed the bowel to him without looking up from her book.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

Diana showed him the cover. 

“Ah! I love Pride and Prejudice.”

“Does it get better?” Diana asked. “Darcy is just… well he’s just snobby. And rude. And no fun.”

Jerry laughed. “Yes! Keep going. You’ll like the end.”

Diana sighed with exasperation and chucked the book aside. “Why is romance always so complicated? Even in books! Families and reputation and manners to dance around. And no one ever just says what they mean.”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated.”Jerry’s heart started to race.He could see the cogs turning in Diana’s head. But was she thinking about the book, or about Charles, or about him?

“Even Anne makes it out to be a grand drama,” Diana sighed.

Jerry smiled. “Anne isn’t always right.”

“Well what makes you such an expert?”

“I am definitely not an expert,” Jerry took a breathe. “But I know what I feel. Which is that I like you. Still. Or I never stopped.”

Diana got quiet as the wind kicked up, and Jerry almost didn’t hear her whispered “me too.”

“See?” Jerry smiled.There was a warmth creeping through his body, like sunshine or relief or hot maple syrup. “Not complicated.”

And then he touched her cheek, and pulled her face to his, and kissed her.

\---

The last memory was more about Diana’s absence than her presence.The next Thursday he went to the boardinghouse to meet Anne and Diana and found neither of them. Mrs. Johnson was there to meet him at the door.She handed him a note from Diana

“Jerry— I have to go home to Avonlea. My father… (here the handwriting wobbled, and a sentence was crossed out)… my father has unexpectedly passed away, and I must be home to help my mother and see to the funeral. I promise we can finish the conversation we started on the beach when we get back.”

That night Jerry sat down and wrote her a letter. He wasn’t as good a writer as Anne, but he said the things he wanted to say. That he couldn’t stop thinking about her, about the kiss, that he felt her shock through her note but couldn’t imagine her grief, and that he was so, so sorry. That he would go home to Avonlea and to the funeral if she wanted him there.

In the end he didn’t end up mailing the letter, because before he went to the post office he went to the picket line. And that was the day McGurik brought in the strike breakers. Jerry went down after one sharp blow to the head, his precious memories of the past few months scattered across the paving stones.


	4. Hope in the darkest of days

Anne held her hand for the entire train ride back to Avonlea. Diana and Anne hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk about what had happened at the beach (they had gotten in trouble with Mrs. Johnson for tracking sand into the house and had been put on floor scrubbing and dinner duty, respectively, for the rest of the evening), so she was sure Anne had plenty of questions for her. She and Jerry had walked back to the boardinghouse hand in hand, after all. But when the telegram with news of the death arrived the next morning, Anne shifted immediately into big sister mode. She held Diana for a long time and then started packing her trunk without being asked. They were on the train by noon. Anne was no stranger to grief, and it was clear that she was determined to take care of Diana through her first big loss. Diana squeezed her hand as she looked out the window and Anne squeezed back. She had never been more grateful for her best bosom friend.

She didn’t understand how this could be happening. Her father was always so very alive; commanding whatever room he was in, lecturing whoever was nearest on the price of tobacco or tomatoes, rolling his eyes at her mother’s latest interest. When Diana had gone to Queens instead of finishing school, he began a rolling commentary about how her life choices would put her at a disadvantage. It was almost three years later and his complaints about her choices had become almost like the chorus of a song they both knew. He kept repeating them, but the bite had gone. This past Christmas was the first time in a long time that Diana had enjoyed being home. Maybe it was because Charles had come to call and her parents loved him so much. But maybe it was because she caught her father alone in his study, looking over the business books. And after he had explained the accounting problems to her, almost like she was a son instead of a daughter, she had convinced him to leave work behind and come spend time with Mother and Minnie May. And for just a moment on that Christmas Eve, her home felt like home again.

And now all of that was gone. It was some trouble with his heart, her mother said. She started babbling the moment Diana walked through the door, and it was difficult seeing her mother who was normally so composed act so unmoored. Minnie May, who was normally a bundle of giggles, was quiet and withdrawn, and Diana had to coax her out of her room by baking her a new batch of cookies each day. Anne stayed at home with Matthew and Marilla, but she came over every afternoon during the week that they planned the funeral.

\---

The day after the funeral Diana wandered into her father’s study.She was looking for a quiet place to write a letter to Jerry. She had been mired in horrible adult decisions for the past week; what type of casket to buy, how to write the obituary, which relatives to thank for the food that was being dropped off by their door. But when she couldn’t stand it anymore she thought about the beach and strawberries and Jerry’s lips on hers and everything would right itself, just for a minute.

She supposed she ought to also write to Charles. She hadn’t left him a note or told him where she was, which was evidence enough to herself that it really was over between them, whether or not her rational mind thought that was a good idea. Her heart had decided for her. Anne’s influence must finally be rubbing off on her.

When she stepped into her father’s study, a whole new wave of anxiety hit her. There wereofficial looking documents, books of ledgers, and what she could only assume were invoices piled high on her father’s desk. Someone was going to have to go through it all and make sense of it if the Barry shipping business was to survive. Diana knew that her father’s will had left the business to her closest male cousin, but Thomas lived with his mother in Toronto and was only 14.Diana opened one of the ledgers. She had taken basic accounting at Queens (a class offered to the girls in an attempt to craft them into perfect secretaries) and she had always liked math.She appreciated the orderliness of the subject, even as Anne detested it. Before she knew it her mother was calling her for dinner, and she was knee deep into untangling the Barry family business’s very messy books. One name in particular caught her eye: The McGurik canning factory had a rather large account.

\---

The next day she got a letter from Cole, detailing the union busting and Jerry getting hit in the head. It must have gotten stuck in the post because it was dated a full week ago. Its contents sent her running over to the Cuthbert’s farm, and pretty soon she and Anne were back on the train to Charlottetown, this time with Minnie May, who was proving just too much for Ms. Barry to handle, in tow.This train ride she let Anne and Minnie May amuse each other, while she sat and worried. She thought about all the times Jerry had made her laugh and how easy it felt to be around him, even when they were talking about hard things. All the times she had almost let herself realize what she was feeling but backed away from it, because of what her family might think.What if Jerry was seriously injured or worse and it was too late now? Her anxiety bumped around her stomach in time to the train’s rhythm, like butterflies banging against the side of a glass aquarium.

While Anne brought Minnie May back to the boarding house, Diana stopped at Aunt Josephine’s house, hoping to get some news from Cole before going to find Jerry’s rooms. (A place, Diana only belatedly realized, she had never been to or asked about).

Aunt Josephine answered the door. It had only been a few days since they had seen each other at Diana’s father’s funeral, but she swept Diana into a hug like she hadn’t seen her in a year. “How are you dear? I didn’t expect to see you back so soon after the funeral.Although I expect you’ll be looking for news about Jerry.”

“How do you always know?” asked Diana.

Aunt Josephine winked and handed Diana a slip of paper. “There’s the address. Cole is over there now making sure he has something to eat.”

So Diana made her way across town to a dingy building with narrow stairs. Diana took a deep breath, but before she could knock on the door of Jerry’s room, Cole came out.

“Diana! It’s good to have you back. I am so sorry for your loss.” Cole gave a peck on the cheek. “He’s going to be so happy to see you. Just don’t let him over do it. He thinks he’s better but he’s still falling over sometimes.”

“I’ll do my best.” Diana smiled at Cole and he gave her a little salute as he turned and walked back down the stairs.

Diana opened the door and before she could fully take in the small room and the bed Jerry was lying on, he was up and wrapping her in a hug so tight it pulled her up on to her tip-toes.

“Diana! You came back!” Jerry exclaimed into her neck.

“Of course I did. I would have come sooner but Cole’s letter didn’t arrive until yesterday.”

Jerry released her and looked seriously into her eyes. “I thought you might have forgotten about me.”

Diana eyed the bruise around Jerry’s left eye and the scabbed-over cut on his temple. “Oh don’t be silly,” she said. “How could I possibly forget about you?”

And just to prove it, she reached up and carefully touched the unhurt side of his face, pulling him down to her eye level, and kissed him.Kissing him was wonderful, and it was only then that the flock of butterflies Diana had been carrying all day finally flew free. When Jerry broke the kiss she finally felt calm, like the world was back on its axis, at least for now.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Jerry said “How is your family?”

At that moment his knees buckled, and Diana struggled to grab him. He was heavy enough that she couldn’t really catch him, but she got herself under his armpit and kept him from going down all the way. “It’s back to bed for you then,” she said firmly.

“No,” Jerry protested. “I’m fine, really!”

“My kiss was clearly just too powerful for you to handle,” Diana said with a wink. “You’ll have to rest after such an exertion.”

Jerry quit complaining after he got in bed, mainly because Diana kissed him again as soon as he was propped up against the pillows.

“My family is all right as they can be,” she said after they had parted. “We’re all so sad. Mother is struggling. You should come meet her, once you’re well again. Minnie May came with us to Charlottetown and she’ll need to go back to Avonlea in a few weeks. You could come with us.”

“Really?” Jerry asked.

“Really,” Diana said. “It would help me to have you there. The house is so quiet now”

“I will be there. Of course. Whatever you need.”

Diana smiled. “And there’s something else I need to tell you.”

And so she told him what she had done.How the business was in her and her mother’s temporary custody until her cousin came of age, and how many shipments of McGurik’s canned foods the Barrys shipped abroad each year, and about the letter she had mailed to Mr. McGurik himself, threatening to cease exporting his goods until an agreement could be reached with the union.

“Do you think it will work?” asked Diana. “I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. But I wanted to do something.”

“I think it’s brilliant. I think you’re brilliant,” Jerry said.

“What if it backfires? If I’ve gotten you and Olivier and your friends into more trouble? I didn’t know about the union busting before I sent it.”

“Then we will figure it out. Together,” Jerry said.

“Together,” Diana agreed.


End file.
